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The Book of Harlan
By Bernice L. McFadden. 2016
Bernice L. McFadden has been named the Go On Girl! Book Club's 2018 Author of the YearWINNER of the 2017…
American Book AwardWINNER of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction)2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee (Fiction)!A Washington Post Notable Book of 2016"McFadden uses the experiences of her own ancestors as loose inspiration for the life of Harlan, whom she portrays from his childhood in Harlem through imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and his struggles afterward to put his life back together."--Library Journal"Simply miraculous...As her saga becomes ever more spellbinding, so does the reader's astonishment at the magic she creates. This is a story about the triumph of the human spirit over bigotry, intolerance and cruelty, and at the center of The Book of Harlan is the restorative force that is music."--Washington Post"Bernice L. McFadden took me on a melodious literary journey through time and place in her masterpiece, The Book of Harlan. It's complex, real, and raw...McFadden intricately and purposefully weaves history as a backdrop in her fiction. The Book of Harlan brilliantly explores questions about agency, purpose, freedom, and survival."--Literary Hub, one of Nicole Dennis-Benn's 26 Books From the Last Decade that More People Should Read"McFadden's writing breaks the heart--and then heals it again. The perspective of a black man in a concentration camp is unique and harrowing and this is a riveting, worthwhile read."--Toronto Star"The Book of Harlan is an incredible read. Bernice McFadden...has created an amazing novel that speaks to lesser known aspects of the African-American experience and illuminates the human heart and spirit. Her spare prose is rich in details that convey deep emotions and draw the reader in. This fictional narrative of Harlan Elliot's life is firmly grounded amidst real people and places--prime historical fiction, and the best book I have read this year."--Historical Novels Review, Editors' Choice"McFadden packs a powerful punch with tight prose and short chapters that bear witness to key events in early twentieth-century history: both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Great Migration. Partly set in the Jim Crow South, the novel succeeds in showing the prevalence of racism all across the country--whether implemented through institutionalized mechanisms or otherwise. Playing with themes of divine justice and the suffering of the righteous, McFadden presents a remarkably crisp portrait of one average man's extraordinary bravery in the face of pure evil."--Booklist, Starred reviewThe Book of Harlan opens with the courtship of Harlan's parents and his 1917 birth in Macon, Georgia. After his prominent minister grandfather dies, Harlan and his parents move to Harlem, where he eventually becomes a professional musician. When Harlan and his best friend, trumpeter Lizard Robbins, are invited to perform at a popular cabaret in the Parisian enclave of Montmartre--affectionately referred to as "The Harlem of Paris" by black American musicians--Harlan jumps at the opportunity, convincing Lizard to join him.But after the City of Light falls under Nazi occupation, Harlan and Lizard are thrown into Buchenwald--the notorious concentration camp in Weimar, Germany--irreparably changing the course of Harlan's life. Based on exhaustive research and told in McFadden's mesmeric prose, The Book of Harlan skillfully blends the stories of McFadden's familial ancestors with those of real and imagined characters.Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem: A Memoir
By Hélène Cixous. 2020
An inventive literary account of Cixous’s remarkable journey to her mother’s birthplaceWinner, French Voices Award for Excellence in Publication and…
TranslationFor about eighty years, the Jonas family of Osnabrück were part of a small but vibrant Jewish community in this mid-size city of Lower Saxony. After the war, Osnabrück counted not a single Jew. Most had been deported and murdered in the camps, others emigrated if they could and if they managed to overcome their own inertia. It is this inertia and failure to escape that Hélène Cixous seeks to account for in Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem.Vicious anti-Semitism hounded all of Osnabrück’s Jews long before the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933. So why did people wait to leave when the threat was so patent, so in-their-face? Drawn from the stories told to Cixous by her mother, Ève, and grandmother, Rosalie (Rosi), this literary work reimagines fragments of Ève’s and Rosi’s stories, including the death of Ève’s uncle, Onkel André. Piecing together the story of Andreas Jonas from what she was told and from what she envisages, Cixous recounts the tragedy of the one she calls the King Lear of Osnabrück, who followed his daughter to Jerusalem only to be sent away by her and to return to Osnabrück in time to be deported to a death camp.Cixous wanders the streets of the city she had heard about all her life in her mother’s and grandmother’s stories, digs into its archives, meets city officials, all the while wondering if she should have come. These hesitations and reflections in the present, often voiced in dialogues staged with her own son or daughter, are woven with scenes from her childhood in Algeria and the half-remembered, half-invented stories of the Jonas family, making Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem one of the author’s most intensely engaging books.This work received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation. French Voices is a program created and funded by the French Embassy in the United States and FACE (French American Cultural Exchange).Thoughtless: A sharp, profound and hilarious new novel - for all the overthinkers...
By Lucie Britsch. 2023
"No one understands the misery and hilarity of being alive better than Lucie Britsch ... Writing like this takes talent…
and the most tender of hearts." JEAN KYOUNG FRAZIER, author of PIZZA GIRLAll her life, Susan's loved ones have been hiding a terrible secret from her: If she thinks too hard, her head will explode. Luckily, her devoted boyfriend, anxious parents and fierce best friend are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep Susan safe in ignorant, thoughtless bliss. And until now, Susan has lived happily in a bubble of TV and takeaways, social media and small talk; anything to distract her from the spiralling thoughts that so often haunt the rest of us - thoughts that would be deadly for her. But what happens when reality creeps in and Susan's perfectly curated world starts to crumble? Can we distract ourselves from the real world forever... and should we?Praise for Lucie Britsch'Surprising and irreverent' NEW YORK TIMES'A strangely exuberant meditation on sadness' REFINERY29'A whip-smart, biting piece of tragicomedy... Hilarious, profound' HUFFINGTON POST'A wicked satire of our obsession with happiness' THE i'A tragicomic riot of a book - charging, foul-mouthed and tender' CLAUDIA DEY 'Like a grown up Daria' HELEN MCCLORY 'If you're a Halle Butler fan or like despair cut with humour, you'll love this' LEIGH STEIN'Dark and hilarious' ROWAN HISAYO BUCHANANAn Indiana Christmas
By Bryan Furuness. 2020
Imagine a moonlit railroad track, a rural road and barn covered with just a dusting of snow, a hound dog…
asleep by the woodstove, and a Red Ryder BB gun hidden behind the tinseled tree—all the makings of an unforgettable Indiana Christmas. In An Indiana Christmas, editor Bryan Furuness brings together timeless short stories, poems, plays, and letters to help you get into the holiday spirit. Lose yourself in classics like "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" by Jean Shepherd, which inspired the beloved movie A Christmas Story, and "A Feel in the Christmas Air" by James Whitcomb Riley, along with more recent literary works like "The Myth of the Perfect Christmas Photo Family" by Kelsey Timmerman and "While Mortals Sleep" by famed Indiana writer Kurt Vonnegut. To achieve the perfect combination of Christmas nostalgia and cheer, Furuness has curated Hoosier stories that allow you to experience an idyllic holiday gathering in "Indiana Winter" by Susan Neville, feel the excitement of a child on Christmas Eve with "Earthbound" by Barbara Shoup, and face the loneliness of a drifter on Christmas night in "Howard Garfield, Balladeer" by Edward Porter. The collection even offers the chance to read a Christmas war dispatch from the late, great Hoosier journalist Ernie Pyle. Heartfelt and unique, An Indiana Christmas paints a picture of what Hoosiers truly hold dear. Family, love, giving, hope, and faith shine through these poignant stories, which are sure to put you in good spirits for the holidays.Should You Ask Me
By Marianne Kavanagh. 2017
'I've come about the bodies. I know who they are.' Just before D-Day in 1944, on the Isle of Purbeck…
in Dorset, an elderly woman walks into a police station. She has information, she says, about human remains recently discovered nearby. The bodies could have stayed buried for ever - like the pain and passion that put them there. But Mary Holmes is finally ready to tell the truth. The young constable sent to take her statement is still suffering from the injuries that ended his army career. As he tries to make sense of her tale, William finds himself increasingly distracted. Mary's confession forces his own violent memories to the surface - betrayals and regrets as badly healed as his war wounds. Over six days, as pressure builds for the final push in Europe, two lives reveal their secrets. Should You Ask Me is a captivating story about people at their worst and best: raw, rich, and utterly compelling.(P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton LimitedTestament: Shortlisted for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award
By Kim Sherwood. 2018
*Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize * Winner of the Bath Novel Award * Shortlisted for the Author's Club Best…
First Novel Award *'What a writer. I was totally captivated. Moving and ultimately uplifting' HEATHER MORRIS, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz'An important and beautifully written novel by a young writer of immense talent. I was deeply moved' Andrew Miller, author of Now We Shall Be Entirely FreeOf everyone in her complicated family, Eva was closest to her grandfather: a charismatic painter - and a keeper of secrets. So when he dies, she's hit by a greater loss - of the questions he never answered, and the past he never shared.It's then she finds the letter from the Jewish Museum in Berlin. They have uncovered the testimony he gave after his forced labour service in Hungary, which took him to the death camps and then to England as a refugee. This is how he survived.But there is a deeper story that Eva will unravel - of how her grandfather learnt to live afterwards. As she confronts the lies that have haunted her family, their identity shifts and her own takes shape. The testament is in her hands.Kim Sherwood's extraordinary first novel is a powerful statement of intent. Beautifully written, moving and hopeful, it crosses the tidemark where the third generation meets the first, finding a new language to express love, legacy and our place within history.(P)2018 Quercus Editions LimitedPower, passion and a devastating fight for the crown - discover the gripping story of Oliver Cromwell's youngest daughter. Perfect…
for fans of Anne O'Brien, Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory 'A powerful and superbly researched historical novel' Andrew Taylor, author of The Last Protector1657. The youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, eighteen-year-old Frances is finding her place at England's new centre of power.Following the turmoil of Civil War, a fragile sense of stability has returned to the country. Her father has risen to the unprecedented position of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and Frances has found herself transported from her humble childhood home to the sumptuous palaces of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where she dreams of romance.But after an assassination attempt on the Cromwell family, Frances realises the precarious danger of her position - and when her father is officially offered the crown, Frances' fate becomes a matter of diplomatic and dynastic importance. Trapped in the web of court intrigue, Frances must make a choice. Allow herself to be a political pawn, or use her new status to take control - of her own future, and of her country's... ***Readers are swept away by The Puritan Princess:'There is much to enjoy in this evocation of a family whose lives are so upended by the convulsions of history' Antonia Senior, The Times'The Puritan Princess is a genuinely moving portrait of the tragedy of the Cromwells at the height of their power' S G MacLean, author of the Damian Seeker series'A beautifully written and captivating true story of personal love and loss... Malins inhabits her characters and brings them convincingly to life' James Evans, author of EMIGRANTS'The extraordinary, revealing and moving relationship between Oliver Cromwell and his daughter Frances is brought to vivid life in this masterly historical novel' Paul Lay, author of Providence Lost'Miranda Malins is a real and fresh new talent. This is beautifully written, exciting fiction from a writer in full command of the history' Suzannah Lipscomb'This engaging novel brings one of the most momentous but least well known periods of English history vividly to life.' Carolyn Kirby, author of THE CONVICTION OF CORA BURNSEaster
By Michael Arditti. 2000
Winner of the Mardi Gras and Waterstone's Book awards, longlisted for the Costa Novel award'It's a delight to find a…
modern novel that takes religion and all the objections to it seriously as a subject: the rockpool of a London parish teems with all kinds of curious life' Philip Pullman'Michael Arditti writes about Western Christianity, as it is manifest in the present Church of England, with pungency and satirical frankness. His style has Joycean echoes' Muriel SparkA Vicar and his congregation are caught up in a latter-day Passion story that will tear apart their lives.The parish of St Mary-in-the-Vale is preparing for Easter. In his Palm Sunday sermon, the Vicar explains that Christ's crucifixion and redemption are taking place every day. He little suspects that, before the week's out, he and his entire congregation will be caught up in a latter-day Passion story which will tear apart their lives. Michael Arditti's magnificent novel is both a devastating portrait of today's Church of England and an audacious reworking of the central myth of Western culture. Taking the form of a traditional triptych, it is at once intimate and epic, lyrical and analytic. Shocking events unfold against a backdrop of meticulously observed religious services. High Church ritual, evangelical revivalism and the ancestor-worship of the English gentry are all subjected to merciless scrutiny.The Enemy of the Good
By Michael Arditti. 2009
Over three remarkable years, the Glanvile family go through events and ordeals that cause it to reassess its deepest values…
and closest relationships'Our best chronicler of the rewards and pitfalls of present day faith' Philip Pullman'His best to date . . . You could truly say all human life was here' A.N. Wilson, Reader's DigestThe Glanvilles are an extraordinary family. Edwin is a retired bishop who has lost his faith. Marta, a child of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a controversial anthropologist. Their son, Clement, is a celebrated gay painter traumatized by the death of his twin. Their daughter, Susannah, is a music publicist recovering from an affair with a convicted murderer. Over three remarkable years, the family goes through a sequence of events that causes it to reassess its deepest values and closest relationships. Clement's work and reputation are violently attacked and his private life exposed. Susannah's exploration of the Kabbalah takes her into the closed world of Chassidic Jews and a seemingly impossible love. Edwin's illness forces Marta to confront the horrors of her past. Each must find a way to escape the abyss.Belladonna (MacLehose Press Editions #2)
By Daša Drndic. 2012
"Belladonna is brutal, beautiful, and unforgettable . . . One of the truly outstanding novels of recent years" EILEEN BATTERSBY,…
Los Angeles Review of Books** Winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2018**** Shortlisted for the inaugural E.B.R.D. Prize for Literature **** Shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize **An excoriating work of fiction that references the twentieth century's darkest hoursAndreas Ban is a writer and a psychologist, an intellectual proper, but his world has been falling apart for years. When he retires with a miserable pension and finds out that he is ill, he gains a new perspective on the debris of his life and the lives of his friends. In defying illness and old age, Andreas Ban is cynical and powerful, and in his unravelling of his own past and the lives of others, he uncompromisingly lays bare a gamut of taboos. Andreas Ban stands for a true hero of our times; a castaway intellectual of a society which subdues every critical thought under the guise of political correctness. Belladonna addresses some of the twentieth century's worst human atrocities in a powerful fusion of fiction and reality, the hallmark of one of Europe's finest contemporary writers.Translated from the Croatian by Celia HawkesworthShould You Ask Me
By Marianne Kavanagh. 2017
'So much period atmosphere, you can practically hear the air-raid sirens.' Daily Mail[An] ingenious page-turner' The Lady'A delight' Guinevere Glasfurd…
'I've come about the bodies. I know who they are.'Mary is eighty-six years old, and she's tired of being quiet.She has a story to tell, and she's only going to tell it once, so she won't be rushed.Especially as it's not just a story, it's a confession.Because Mary has a dark secret, buried decades before. And while William, the nice young constable, might think she just wants someone to talk to, everything she says forces him to confront his own difficult past.A unique and poignant novel about passion, regret and heartbreak, set during one of the most tumultuous periods of modern British history.Abigail
By Magda Szabó. 1970
A teenage girl's difficult journey towards adulthood in a time of war."A school story for grownups that is also about…
our inability or refusal to protect children from history" SARAH MOSS"Of all Szabo's novels, Abigail deserves the widest readership. It's an adventure story, brilliantly written" TIBOR FISCHEROf all her novels, Magda Szabó's Abigail is indeed the most widely read in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after it was written, it appears for the first time in English, joining Katalin Street and The Door in a loose trilogy about the impact of war on those who have to live with the consequences. It is late 1943 and Hitler, exasperated by the slowness of his Hungarian ally to act on the "Jewish question" and alarmed by the weakness on his southern flank, is preparing to occupy the country. Foreseeing this, and concerned for his daughter's safety, a Budapest father decides to send her to a boarding school away from the capital. A lively, sophisticated, somewhat spoiled teenager, she is not impressed by the reasons she is given, and when the school turns out to be a fiercely Puritanical one in a provincial city a long way from home, she rebels outright. Her superior attitude offends her new classmates and things quickly turn sour.It is the start of a long and bitter learning curve that will open her eyes to her arrogant blindness to other people's true motives and feelings. Exposed for the first time to the realities of life for those less privileged than herself, and increasingly confronted by evidence of the more sinister purposes of the war, she learns lessons about the nature of loyalty, courage, sacrifice and love.Translated from the Hungarian by Len RixTestament: Shortlisted for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award
By Kim Sherwood. 2018
*Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize * Winner of the Bath Novel Award * Shortlisted for the Author's Club Best…
First Novel Award *'What a writer. I was totally captivated. Moving and ultimately uplifting' HEATHER MORRIS, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz'An important and beautifully written novel by a young writer of immense talent. I was deeply moved' Andrew Miller, author of Now We Shall Be Entirely FreeOf everyone in her complicated family, Eva was closest to her grandfather: a charismatic painter - and a keeper of secrets. So when he dies, she's hit by a greater loss - of the questions he never answered, and the past he never shared.It's then she finds the letter from the Jewish Museum in Berlin. They have uncovered the testimony he gave after his forced labour service in Hungary, which took him to the death camps and then to England as a refugee. This is how he survived.But there is a deeper story that Eva will unravel - of how her grandfather learnt to live afterwards. As she confronts the lies that have haunted her family, their identity shifts and her own takes shape. The testament is in her hands.Kim Sherwood's extraordinary first novel is a powerful statement of intent. Beautifully written, moving and hopeful, it crosses the tidemark where the third generation meets the first, finding a new language to express love, legacy and our place within history.Good Offices
By Evelio Rosero. 2009
When Father Almida is summoned to an audience with the parish's principal benefactor, a stand-in is found in Father Matamoros,…
a drunkard with an angel's voice whose sung mass is mesmerizing to all. But Matamoros hides a darker side, and when the church's residents throw a feast for him he encourages them to lose all their inhibitions and give free reign to their most Bacchanalian desires. A satire on the iniquities of the Catholic church in Colombia, Good Offices is at once comic, surreal and startling, a novel that will linger long in the mind.The Last Brother: A Novel
By Nathacha Appanah. 2007
In the remote forests of Mauritius, young Raj is almost oblivious of the Second World War raging beyond his tiny…
exotic island. With only his mother for company while his father works as a prison guard, solitary ever since his brothers died years ago, Raj thinks only of making friends.One day, the far-away world comes to Mauritius, and Raj meets David, a Jew exiled from his home in Europe and imprisoned in the camp where Raj's father works. David becomes the friend that he has always longed for, a brother to replace those he has lost. Raj knows that he must help David to escape. As they flee through sub-tropical landscapes and devastating storms, the boys battle hunger and malaria - and forge a friendship only death can destroy. The Last Brother is a powerful, poetic novel that sheds new light on a little-explored aspect of 20th-century history.News from Berlin
By Otto De Kat. 2012
June 1941. Dutch diplomat Oscar Verschuur has been posted to neutral Switzerland. His family is spread across Europe. His wife…
Kate works as a nurse in London and their daughter Emma is living in Berlin with her husband Carl, a 'good' German who works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Briefly reunited with her father in a restaurant in Geneva, Emma drops a bombshell. A date and a codename, and the fate of nations is placed in Verschuur's hands: June 22, Barbarossa. What should he do? Warn the world, or put his daughter's safety first? The Gestapo are watching them both. And with Stalin lulled by his alliance with Hitler, will anyone even listen? Otto de Kat is fast gaining a reputation as one of Europe's sharpest and most lucid writers. News from Berlin, a book for all readers, a true page-turner driven by the pulse of a ticking clock, confirms him as a storyteller of subtly extravagant gifts.The Third Day
By Chochana Boukhobza. 2010
A leading Israeli musician and her protégé return to Jerusalem for three days to perform with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Both…
women - one a gifted young cellist, one a Holocaust survivor saved by her extraordinary musical talent - have been in America for some time, are quickly caught up in tangled threads from former lives. Elisheva is reunited with her godson, Daniel; Rachel must face both her distant father and Erytan, a former lover, whose lingering power over her now threatens all she has worked for. Elisheva is coaching Rachel for the solo performance, but something else has drawn her to Jerusalem. Another old friend has lured a Nazi eugenicist, the Butcher of Majdanek, to Israel from Venezuela. The Butcher performed torturous experiments on Elisheva, determining not only her fate but also that of her closest friends. On the third day of her stay, the day of the concert, she will take her revenge. Set in the late 1980s, The Third Day is a vivid portrait of life in Jerusalem and a sensitive meditation on the power of music and the sacrifices it demands. And at its heart is a gripping narrative of retribution that brings the novel's many moving strands towards a tense and shattering conclusion.Trieste
By Daša Drndic. 2012
Haya Tedeschi sits alone in Gorizia, north-eastern Italy, surrounded by a basket of photographs and newspaper clippings. Now an old…
woman, she waits to be reunited after sixty-two years with her son, fathered by an S.S. officer and stolen from her by the German authorities during the War as part of Himmler's clandestine 'Lebensborn' project, which strove for a 'racially pure' Germany. Haya's reflection on her Catholicized Jewish family's experiences deals unsparingly with the massacre of Italian Jews in the concentration camps of Trieste. Her obsessive search for her son leads her to photographs, maps and fragments of verse, to testimonies from the Nuremberg trials and interviews with second-generation Jews, as well as witness accounts of atrocities that took place on her doorstep. A broad collage of material is assembled, and the lesser-known horror of Nazi occupation in northern Italy is gradually unveiled. Written in immensely powerful language, and employing a range of astonishing conceptual devices, Trieste is a novel like no other. Dasa Drndic has produced a shattering contribution to the literature of our twentieth-century history.Olga: A Novel
By Prof Bernhard Schlink. 2018
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times'Brilliant... A tale of love and loss in…
20th century Germany' Evening Standard'A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance' Mail on Sunday'A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time' Observer Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.The Third Day
By Chochana Boukhobza. 2010
A leading Israeli musician and her protégé return to Jerusalem for three days to perform with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Both…
women - one a gifted young cellist, one a Holocaust survivor saved by her extraordinary musical talent - have been in America for some time, are quickly caught up in tangled threads from former lives. Elisheva is reunited with her godson, Daniel; Rachel must face both her distant father and Erytan, a former lover, whose lingering power over her now threatens all she has worked for. Elisheva is coaching Rachel for the solo performance, but something else has drawn her to Jerusalem. Another old friend has lured a Nazi eugenicist, the Butcher of Majdanek, to Israel from Venezuela. The Butcher performed torturous experiments on Elisheva, determining not only her fate but also that of her closest friends. On the third day of her stay, the day of the concert, she will take her revenge. Set in the late 1980s, The Third Day is a vivid portrait of life in Jerusalem and a sensitive meditation on the power of music and the sacrifices it demands. And at its heart is a gripping narrative of retribution that brings the novel's many moving strands towards a tense and shattering conclusion.